Step 1: Find Scorching Hot Blog Topics with Social Shares

In a 2014 video, Matt Cutts from Google’s web spam team was asked this question:

“Are Facebook and Twitter signals part of the ranking algorithm? How much do they matter?”

He responds by saying:

Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages in our web index…

But as far as doing any special, specific work like ‘you have this many followers or this many likes on Facebook’, to the best of my knowledge, we don’t currently have any signals like that in our web search ranking algorithms.

Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages in our web index…

Matt Cutts | Head of Web Spam @ Google

So should SEOs stop focusing on social media?

No way…

Social media is a fantastic medium that generates engagement, exposure and links.

Wikipedia dominates top tier keyword phrases with over 15 million organic search positions.

It’s about creating content that best serves the user intent, which in turn fulfills our conversion needs.

Ranking for single word keywords usually hold very low intent and is not a battle worth fighting.

You can’t quantify keyword difficulty. But we’ll try anyway…

First, you need to understand that there is no way to accurately quantify keyword difficulty. Google is constantly making changes to their search algorithms, so focusing on key ranking metrics is the best we can do.

The higher the PA and DA of the ranking websites, the harder it will be for you to rank for that specific keyword.

Ryan Stewart | SEO Consultant

Here are the top 4 search results for a more reachable phrase (880 monthly searches).

Some seriously low numbers on both metrics and two of the four pages aren’t even targeting the keyword in question. This appears to be a winner.

Rinse and repeat and here is the list I came up with:

So we have some decent keywords to work with, but putting this many ideas together is content marketing suicide.

It’s not about stuffing keywords to gain rank. That’s so 2009…

It’s about creating a cohesive piece of content that fulfills the user intent. It just so happens that keywords fall in the mix.

Are your competitors intentionally optimizing for that phrase?

Visit some of the sites and quickly scan through their page.

There are three great signs for a workable takeover.

Not an exact match root domain.

Thin content.

No use of exact match keyword phrases.

Most of the results from my search query met the criteria. All sites had extremely thin content (<300 words), only one exact match root domain (weak domain stats) and half without intent to optimize for that keyword phrase.

In addition to those factors, there is very little value for someone wanting to fulfill their learning needs.

Analyze the strength of your competitors’ backlinks.

Choose your favorite backlink checker. I use Ahrefs.

Enter one of the URLs in the search field and let your backlink checker do the work. You should end up with results that look like this:

This particular page has 31 dofollow backlinks, but the quality of the links are pretty horrific.

From the four results, contextual backlinks are the most powerful. I wouldn’t even count the links from the other 3.

Two high quality backlinks have the power to outrank 100 low quality ones.

If you’re seeing powerful inbound links from major media sites like Huffington Post and CNN, it might be worth moving on.

On to the next step of our checklist – you still with me?

Step 4: Make Friends with Keyword Research

Here’s a headline to remember:
I won’t get into the psychology of viral content, but my primary keyword phrase has been seamlessly integrated into this title.

Let’s dive into some relevant keyword generation techniques.

Use Google’s Related Searches

Google gets 1.2 trillion searches per year (2012). They know a thing or two about search…

Real people make real searches and you want to be the person to fulfill their very real desires.

Start a new search query.

Scroll to the bottom and find yourself another 8+ related keyword phrases.

Throw these into keyword planner.

There are 8 more keyword phrases for you to consider when writing your epic post.

Use LSIs to Capture More Keyword Rankings

Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a fancy term for synonyms or variations of keywords. Rather than wiping off the dust from your thesaurus, just search the phrase in question and look for the nice bolded words.

When we use keywords phrases, search engines hunt for other phrases and concepts that relate to one another. So our first job is to expand our keywords research to incorporate these related phrases and concepts.

Cyrus Shepard | Director of Audience Development @ Moz

This graphic explains LSIs and keyword relationships.

Here are two examples from our primary keyword target:

1. Common suffixes that do not change the meaning of the root word (ex. ‘-ed’, ‘-ing’, ‘-s’)

2. Synonyms (ex. fast = quick, ways = methods)

Take some of these LSIs and throw them in the mix. Although search engines understand that “fast” also means “quick”, they are always looking to bring the most relevant content to its users.

It’s your job to give them as much information as possible.

Multiply your Keywords with KeywordTool.io

Yes, Google’s Keyword Planner gives you a bunch of suggestions, but the majority of them are irrelevant.

KeywordTool.io is my favorite keyword generator for finding thousands of other related terms. Here’s how you use it:

Enter your search query.

This keyword generator will spit out a ton of relevant phrases like your original term. Hit the copy all button and add it to a new worksheet in excel.

Rinse and repeat for other KW phrases in your list.

Get Search Volumes, Filter and Organize

If you’ve gone through this in great detail, then you have way too many keywords to filter through.

You can copy and paste everything into GKP, but I’m guessing you don’t have 2 weeks to devote to keyword research.

10X Your Business

Learn how to identify the right audiences. I 10Xed my business and so can you. Get your free copy of my eBook Scale: Target Audiences that Buy.

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

First Name

Email Address

I send marketing strategies that work.

Author: Sam Oh

Caleb Spreiter

Great post! Tons of good info in here.

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Thanks Caleb! Hope it does justice to your SEO question from our Facebook thread a few weeks ago. 🙂

Caleb Spreiter

Yeah absolutely!

http://www.chelseashootspeople.com chelsea

Wow! Great information! I just started learning about all this SEO stuff and noticed if I actuvely follow the correct steps, results happen! New to blogging, but I will implement your tips and reoort back. Thanks again!

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Awesome Chelsea! Hope you get some MAMMOTH results 🙂

http://www.catwalkrugs.com.au Toby Gospodarczyk

Whew nice, this will probably take me weeks to implement but I’ll give it a try. 🙂

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Awesome man. Let me know how it goes. Takes me weeks too 😉

jj

Wow, that’s a lot of info. Thanks.

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

No problem JJ 🙂

Liv

Oh wow, this is quality stuff. Thanks so much for all of this!! Def going to keep referring back to the checklist. Amazing!!!!

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Thanks Liv 🙂 Flattered

stacy

Good stuff! Thanks, Sam!

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Thanks Stacy 🙂 Glad you enjoyed it.

Matthew Davison

I just found my new favourite blogger!

Im currently writing a 3000 + word piece and know how much effort this takes. You went beyond that with the infographic, PDF download and super actionable pictures!!

Thanks man. Your compliments mean the world to me (seriously). Glad you enjoyed my take on the SEO process. Not easy, but it’s just worth it 🙂

Václav Veselka

Nice article, i have a question…is something like moz tool for majestic (Trust flow in SERP)?

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

I’m not quite sure I understand the question. I do use Majestic’s Trust Flow metric in the content marketing mix, but that’s usually after checking Moz DA/PA. I also use it when reaching out to certain blogs. You don’t want to build links on shady sites that break/bend the rules.

Václav Veselka

So you think, that moz DA / PA is better metric than TF/CF. My question was, if exist some plugin like MozBar with Majestic (MajesticBar). Because i have only majestic acc.

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

I can’t say that one metric is better than the other. Both hold some validity 🙂 Feel free to use whichever works best for you. MozBar is free whether you have a MozPro account or not.

Václav Veselka

Thank you 🙂 i dont know that. So my problem is solved.

sara

Wow, so much great information here! I have a lot to learn when it comes to SEO.

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

SEO just happens to be one of those things where the learning never stops 😉 Thanks for reading.

http://justplainmarie.ca/ Just Plain Marie

Oh, my goodness. I need to set this as my home page for the next month so that I can work through all of this information. Thank you.

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

HA! There are no rules against setting it as that 😉 Thanks for reading Marie.

http://www.compassandfork.com elizabeth

Wow- that is a comprehensive guide. You should update it in the future and tell us how it went with SEO as it follows many of your suggestions. I have bookmarked it for future reference.

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Great idea Elizabeth. I’ll keep this post updated 🙂

Jessica Haynes

this is exactly what i’ve been looking for FO EVA. pinning this for later!

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Glad you enjoyed it Jessica 🙂 Thanks for coming by.

Zuzana Perner

Hey Sam, great content, just what I’ve been looking for! Just a quick question I see your screenshots from market samurai and no filters set, could you tell me if you set this for monthly or daily results? Also can you help me with what values you typically use for total searches/trends/MSEOTC/MSEOUC/SEOC ? Finally do you not use the competition analysis module of market samurai? I’ve had market samurai years but wasnt sure if it is still an effective keyword tool that gives you accurate data?

https://www.moneyjournal.com/ Sam Oh

Hey Zuzana – I’ll generally add filters for traffic volumes then test ones that suit my criteria in a competitive analysis. I always set it to monthly search volumes and filters will vary depending on what I’m going for. Not sure if you saw my video series on Market Samurai, but I talk about the different metrics here: http://www.moneyjournal.com/market-samurai-review-tutorial/ (6 part series). Might be worth a watch 🙂

Hans Ebert

Great article! Thanks! I will send you updates and I have bookmarked it for future reference.

Loved this information. Nice techniques for increasing your page speed. I will implement these on my website for booosting its speed. Recently I came through a blog on page speed optimization and found it very helpful http://growthpixel.com/top-tips-page-speed-optimization/
Thank you.